THERE IS NOT A SINGLE REFERENCE TO MASTERBATION IN THE ENTIREBIBLE...ONAN'S SIN WAS TO "PULL OUT" AND DUMP HIS LOAD...NOTMASTERBATION....

_________________________
A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: "Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time." When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment, "The one I feed the most."

"In the passage Andy quoted I've always felt that was Paul speaking to couples telling them that they need to quit "burning with passion" and get married already. It never dawned on me that he was talking about "M". I don't believe he is, but perhaps I'm wrong. "

I don't believe the passage is talking about M. To me it's simply saying that it's better to marry than to burn with passion. My hangup is, what if one can't fulfill this "better way?" What if they do not have the means to unite with a member of the other gender in marriage? Is burning with passion the hopeless fate then of one who cannot marry? Isn't M a solution to burning with passion? I'm assuming with my question.

But wait a minute, since I am not a Christian maybe I should refrain, but thoughts are just thoughts, and fantasies too. I love my girlfriend so, so much, but when I think about someone else when M, its just a fantasy. I don't really want to act on it.

I find this whole discussion so unsettling. Let's say you do think about your neighbor's wife. So? Trying not to think or fantasize about almost anything gives that thing or fantasy so much power over you. Aren't *actions* what really matter?

You raise a valid point. For me, I find that when I allow the fantasy of my neighbor's wife, or the hot guy down the street to get out of control my relationship with my wife suffers as a result. I guess that is my answer to your question, "So?" I for one, am not saying the occasional stray fantasy is the issue so much as the continual one. I value my relationship with my wife enough to at least attempt to give her all of me, not the leftovers from all my other fantasies.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Back to Andy's original question, I think what it boils down to is that this is a question you must answer in your own time in a way that is acceptable to you. I'm in agreement with the sentiment expressed by some here that there's not a problem with M as long as it doesn't take a person to an area that they believe to be "sin".

_________________________“Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting ‘Holy ____…! What a ride!’” ~Hunter S. Thompson

Masturbation doesn't bother me at all - not in any spiritual sense and not in any other way. But the issue does interest me for several points:

1) The Bible refers to many things that we would no longer agree to use as a basis for managing our lives. Those passages are by common (if tacit) consent seen as referring to the beliefs of a certain time and place in ancient history only. Do any of us believe that epilepsy is caused by demonic possession, for example?

2) That said, there is nothing in the Bible about masturbation, as Frog has already noted.

3) I wonder how many young or not so young shepherds in OT times masturbated to the thought of the Song of Songs, which is sexual poetry pure and simple but one of the most beautiful parts of the OT.

4) Modern or at least non-original views or doctrines of the various Christian confessions are reflected in the translations they produce of the Bible. For example, "Thou shalt not kill" as opposed to "Thou shalt not commit murder" (the Hebrew supports the latter); or the many difficulties involved in translating Greek terms that refer to passion/lust/love/devotion/affection/intimacy.

5) If God is all-wise, all-loving, all-knowing and so forth (and if he isn't, what's the point of religion?), then it seems to me absolutely certain that he also has a sense of priorities in which whether or not guys masturbate is of zero importance.

Andy, I think it's great you're a man of faith but okay with the idea of masturbating and don't see it as a sin. It's a healthy and normal sexual outlet and even guys who are in a good solid marriage or other sexual relationship still do it.

Much love,Larry

_________________________Nobody living can ever stop meAs I go walking my freedom highway.Nobody living can make me turn back:This land was made for you and me.(Woody Guthrie)

As a seventh grader going through the process of Catholic Confirmation, I will never foget the lesson we received on Onan's Law.

One Wednesday a month, we had a class to learn of the Sacrament of Confirmation. Part of this class every month was Mass. In seventh grade, the topic of Confirmation class was the Catholic version of sex education. One Wednesday, during Mass, the priest elected to talk about Onan's Law for a full hour. He tried to shame and scare us into not masturbating. He spent an hour trying to tell us how God could strike us dead at any time and then send us to hell for the simple act of pleasing ourselves.

There were about 40 boys and 40 girls in this class, and I'll never know if anyone else there was as terrified as I was. I had just learned about masturbation on my own, and I truthfully thought I was the only one who was doing it. I was so terrified, I went almost two years before I dared to do it again. That coincided with completely losing my desire to live, so it is obvious that my resuming my masturbatory habits was not healthy.

The odd part about all of this is the fact that this priest, soon therafter, was in court defending himself against charges of sexually abusing a boy I knew.

As a devout agnostic, I can only hope that if God does exist (which is something I doubt), he gives me a little bit of credit for trying to be a good person. However, my view is that if masturbation is a sin, then God is evil.

Bryan

_________________________Revenge is nothing more than another way of perpetuating abuse.

What the world needs nowIs some new words of wisdomLike la la la la la la la la la.-David Lowery

Having a friend who will keep a secret for you is worthless compared to a friend who won't keep a secret from you.

I do have to give my church a lot of credit in this area. In our youth fellowship group, which met on Sunday evenings, each session was devoted to a topic according to a schedule we had all agreed on at the beginning of the school year. One evening it would be "capital punishment", another would be "hunting", some other time it would be "drinking", "parents", or whatever. And every year we would of course include sex.

I think I was 13 when the youth leader decided to really do it right. He gave a talk on sex, then we were separated into boys' and girls' groups to ask questions, then back together for a general discussion. I don't think I will ever forget what happened in the boys group that night. One kid asked, "What's fellatio?", so the youth leader told us. I had never heard the word so I was curious too. But when he described it and all the boys were disgusted and said "Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww, gross", and other such things, I felt totally humiliated, rejected and shamed. I had been doing that for years, of course, and I knew that after fellowship I would be doing it again, like I did every Sunday after fellowship. It was part of my routine, and now I get reminded how different and alone I was.

I know this is veering off topic, but I think it's useful to notice that how we feel about such things can get real complicated if we try to view the religious, sexual and abuse aspects all at once. Maybe we will get a better perspective is we keep them separate.

For instance, it helps me as a spiritual guy to see, and accept, that my church - as the church - was actually very progressive for that time and in touch with my concerns as a teenager. It was abuse and the abuser who messed things up and created all the distortions and confusion I still feel in this area.

I know, however, that this would not apply in your own case. It's dismaying to see such an important force in people's lives insist on being the source of such unnecessary harm.

Much love,Larry

_________________________Nobody living can ever stop meAs I go walking my freedom highway.Nobody living can make me turn back:This land was made for you and me.(Woody Guthrie)

Ya know what I find interesting, is that I was raised son of a very conservative Baptist minister. We were NEVER told masturbating was a sin. As mentioned, lust was always the problem. So, if you were told M was a sin, it was not universal to the Christian faith. I know Catholics still have a hard time with it (HA - pun intended) but

I think this is more victorian ethos oozing into religious discomfort. Even the puritans were very comfortable with their sexuality in the bonds of marriage - (the Scarlet Letter was not a documentary and it dealt with hypocrisy and adultery anyway) But as we tell students, as long as you are not substituting relationsips and normal activities for masturbating, you are normal and healthy. I think there will be periods we all go through where we need to relieve the pressure physically even several times a day. But in my mind, better to do that, than let a horny thought become real behavior. On the other hand, nice to save it for the wife too...hmmm...it's saturday....Paul

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